


ghosts that we knew

by duets



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Gen, M/M, warnings for second person i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-18
Updated: 2012-08-18
Packaged: 2017-11-12 09:08:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/489163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duets/pseuds/duets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in the morning it will be fall and you'll have missed it again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ghosts that we knew

The scarf warms your neck like barbed wire, little strands of grey fabric loose and prickling your skin. There's an old tyre swing somewhere buried in the grass, a hidden significance behind all this, but it rains and your eyes are wet and tired, so you miss it.

You have been sitting here long enough to convince yourself that you don't know where you are. California took its time understanding how unremarkable it is to you, but it's probably got used to it by now. 

(So should _you_ , but that is hardly the point.)

From somewhere inside the house somebody calls for more music, changing the noise outside with a turn of the wrist. You stretch your legs and breathe in (Palm trees, not pine.) and wonder if it's possible to die of hypothermia in the middle of September. You've got your seasons all wrong, you realise, and when you exhale your breath smells of beer, although the last thing you remember drinking is vodka--the glass hurting under you fingers, handed to you by a familiar blurry face and a confident smile that will fill your bedroom and disappear before morning. 

You have always remembered names well enough, categorised them by degrees of co-relation, could tell the difference even if there was an abrupt change of act. You know the names of every person inside, how they met, but here they don't need you to.

He had used to cling to you like hope clings to faith. Just as uselessly, with the same blindness concerning the future. He had never particularly cared about the other probabilities, the ones you _could_ measure.

"You didn't have to," he had said, his elbow touching yours, the heat plastering his fringe against his forehead, ruining the gravity he was hoping to achieve. And you had interrupted him because yes, you _did_.

(It was him, not his father or what he represented. But reading between the lines was never one of your skills, and he was nothing if not pleasantly insincere.)

"So what?"

And then he had sighed and closed his eyes, turning away just enough for you to notice, as if disappointed with your resolution. He had never expected it to have anything to do with him when he wasn't in control of it. You had always been sure to make it so.

It strikes you as odd, now, that _he_ was the one who got to run away in the end, that he saved that last shred of control just to give it up afterwards.

You fail to estabilish any connection between the swing and the house, the people you know who own it. Later, outside, someone props you to your feet by the waist, helps you walk to the cab like they aren't. You miss the meaning of their hand on the small of your back, file it in for later. You know their name too _much_ , can trace the paths that lead to you being introduced too _easily_. Your hair is still wet against their fingers when you taste them, no one bothered to tell you to dry it. You didn't expect them to.

You suppose that it should be harder to remember him now that there are missing links, spaces filled wrong between you. And still, it's scarcely odd that you should keep missing it, even if you can rewind to before and watch it all unfold with unnecessary clarity. The only thing that ever connected him to you was yourself, and patterns can hardly be understood with just one half.

(In the morning it will be fall and you'll have missed it again.)


End file.
